PREP THEM FOR MED SCHOOL? THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW THE THREE "R"S

By Juan Montoya
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions..."
If anything, you've got to hand it to the Brownsville Independent School District board majority members for their overweening ambition.
They incurred the wrath of the parents and students at Veterans Memorial High School with their plans to convert the new $75 million facility into a magnet college preparatory campus for science technology and the medical professions.
But critics say that despite the assurances that the administration and board are attempting to recapture students that have enrolled in alternative programs offered here, in Harlingen and in Mercedes that are draining BISD of brain power and federal student-attendance funds, the basics have been abandoned in the effort.
Local critics say (they asked for anonymity) say that instead of trying to turn Veterans into a pre-med facility and scientist incubator, the BISD administration and board should instead concentrate on teaching students the "three R's."
"Look at the class of 2010 that enrolled at Texas Southmost College," said one, showing a printout generated by the TSC admissions office. "Nearly half (46.5 percent) are not college ready. They have to take remedial classes. Of the dual-enrolled students , 31.3 are not college ready (384 of 1,227) . In math only, a sample of 255 indicates that 66.4 percent don't pass muster. In reading that number is 52.1 percent (of 200) , and in writing, 44.5 (of 171 not ready) don't cut it either. In the Fall 2010, TSC enrollment indicate that of 2,193 new students admitted to the community college, 1,227 were dual enrollment students, and 966 were non-dual students.
The non-dual enrollment total (966) fared even worse. Only 34.2 percent were college ready. The rest (65.8) of those graduates were not ready for college  A full 74.8 percent (of a 476 sample) were not college ready in math , 63.2 (of a sample of 402) were not ready in reading, and 60.7 (of a sample of  386) were not-college ready in writing.
"The dual-enrolment students are supposed to be the cream of the crop and half of them can't even read or write at college level," he said. "In math they're even worse. And they want to run a pre-med program at Veterans?"
During the campaign last time around for vacancies at the TSC board of trustees, candidates pointed to the dismal educational situation at the BISD, but also at the abysmal performance of the TSC-UTB hybrid run by President Juliet Garcia and her cohorts.
"Once they graduate from BISD and go on to TSC, the majority of students have to take remedial classes," said a candidate at the time. "After a year or two they run out of grants and they have to drop out because they can't afford the high cost of tuition and fees there. And even if they do make it into the university, their chances of success are abysmal."
The TSC-UTB "partnership's" performance is so bad that the school could not even be ranked with other schools that shared similar characteristics. In fact, the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation gave the city millions to address its 50 percent freshman retention rate, its 17 percent graduation rate over six years, and
the high cost of tuition and fees imposed upon one of the poorest segments in American society.
New TSC president Lily Tercero – unlike Garcia who never owned up to her dismal performance and her perpetuation of the high college costs – has taken the bull by the horns and addressed this an an overriding issue facing TSC.
She said that the state average is $66 per credit hour, but that TSC charges about $200 per credit hour.
"It is something that we will look at and should be addressed," she told the local daily. "That is our plan."
Be that as it may, for one city resident, the emphasis that the current BISD board and administration in putting on pre-med and science instruction at the Veterans magnet school is missing the mark altogether.
"If a student is going to go to med school, he has to take the basic courses first," he said.
"The first thing you have to do is teach them the basics like reading, writing and arithmetic. Once they get in college they have to pass those first before they're even allowed into a pre-med program. If half of your students aren't graduating college ready, why focus the resources on the few that are? The mission of the BISD should be to graduate people who can read, write and add and subtract. Anything else is delusional."